Message from the Manager NSTP - June 2014

Tēnā koutou

There is a saying that the only constant in life is change. The museum/gallery sector is certainly not immune and even the largest of organisations need to continually review, refresh, and consult to make sure that they remain relevant and connected to their purpose and their communities of support.

National Services Te Paerangi often examines why and how we do things – with the intention of improving and enhancing our services. We do this in a variety of ways, such as the evaluation forms we ask you fill out after each of our workshops, and more targeted reviews such as the consultation we undertook in order to refresh our grants programme two years ago.

Currently we are undertaking an important and long-awaited review of our New Zealand Museums Standards Scheme Ngā Kaupapa Whaimana a Ngā Whare Taonga o Aotearoa. The Standards Scheme is familiar to many of you as a way that museums, galleries, and iwi can reach new levels of professionalism by using it as a framework for continuous improvement. It is intended to be useful for any organisation – large or small. The review will check in with the suggested standards for each module, making sure they are current and reflective of best practice. We will also look for ways that we can strengthen the scheme as a development tool so that museums, galleries and iwi can make good use of their engagement, setting clear goals.

The review is not intended to reshape the scheme entirely – rather to refresh it and aid in its delivery and usefulness to all organisations. The main objectives identified so far are:

Reviewing text with a view to remove duplication of standards in different modules.

Reviewing each module to ensure it is up to date with current best practice – external advice will be gathered from experts in governance, accessibility, emergency preparedness, etc.

Giving focus to strengthening the care of collections module.

Creating a development plan template that it can be used by participating organisations in consultation with external reviewers to build a clear, succinct plan for future focus.

Checking the relevance of the standards scheme to marae-based whare taonga.

Consulting with the sector (including those who have participated in the scheme and those who have not), Museums Aotearoa, and other sector specialist groups.

Considering how to promote the scheme to the sector, to increase participation and increase understanding of how it operates.

We look forward to working with many of you with this project and are excited by the opportunity it offers to build an even better New Zealand Museums Standards Scheme.